Welcome! This year, I'm supplementing my student specific information for teachers with some additional reading/tools that will help you support our shared student with low vision.
Room Setup Guidance Your student will using a a monitor connected to your document camera/ActiveBoard. This usually means that the student will need to sit close to the teacher’s workstation. I have some great cord cover that can be used in carpeted rooms. Don't hesitate to let me know if you need me to bring some to your room.
Eye Conditions Your student's modifications and accommodations are driven by their functional vision and their eye condition. A student with peripheral field loss, for instance, will have very different accommodations as compared to a student who only has central field loss. You should have received student specific information from me with the eye condition listed but here are some additional resources:
Please note that a student's vision is also affected by his or her environment (for example, time of day, illumination, size, space between objects or letters/words, contrast, etc.). You may notice that your student uses his or her vision differently at the beginning of the day versus the end of the day.
General Tips These articles provide some good tips:
Overview of Accommodations/Modifications The "IEP at a Glance" document that I give you for your student will list the specific accommodations and modifications that your student will be using. Some of these will include tools such as magnifiers, monoculars, iPads, CCTV, accessibility settings on the computer (or ZoomText, a screen reader/screen magnification program). These articles give you some ideas of tools you might see your student using. I'm also including a document that lists the accessibility features a student may use on the iPad.
Bookshare (this is an electronic repository where our students can download textbooks and novels to their iPads or computers).
Inservices At the beginning of the school year, some secondary students find it helpful to briefly explain their eye condition to their classmates and why he/she uses different tools in class. This does not have to take a long time (perhaps 5 minutes) and, if helpful, simulation glasses can be passed around that help give other students a sense of the student's visual impairment. During elementary school, a longer inservice for classmates is enthusiastically suggested. By middle school, however, the choice of whether to discuss their low vision is left up to the student.
Just in Case You Have Time... You probably won't have time, but these are some good memoirs written by adults who have experienced vision loss at some point in their lives. As a teacher with typical sight, I find that it's helpful to listen to these voices: